Pre-Dawn Fisking

Drinking coffee before dawn I stumbled onto a left-wing screed from a fellow named Will Marshall.  It is amazing to me that he could pack so many falsehoods into a single Beast article.  If you roll down to the credits, you'll learn that Mr. Marshall runs The Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist political think tank.  If you believe he's centrist, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.  But, labels aside, lets go to the meat of his argument.

The gun lobby is shooting sensible gun legislation full of holes. Already, the Senate has dropped a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, 

Well, for starters Will, the legislation isn't sensible.  It does nothing to prevent crime and would have done nothing to prevent the tragedy at Newtown.  If legislation is not sensible, then I expect the Senate to drop it.

 Maintaining public order is supposed to be government’s job. The sociologist Max Weber considered a “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force to keep order” to be the defining characteristic of a competent state. 

In this case, Will, Max Weber is simply mistaken.  He's wrong.  More to the point, a monopoly on the use of physical force is the defining characteristic of tyranny.  Going beyond sociological theory, we find that even the antelope on the plains have a natural right to use their horns and hooves as weapons against predators.  Every living being has a natural right to self-defense.

 In the gun lobby’s dystopic view, Americans can no longer rely on government to keep them safe, so they have to do the job themselves.

No, Will, in the gun lobby's clear-eyed view, we understand that when seconds count, the police are minutes away and that our defense is our responsibility.  The police can't camp on our doorstep every minute, nor do we wish them to.  It's going to take them a few minutes to get here and if those few minutes are the difference between life and death, I'll chose life, thank you.

I could go on, deconstructing him sentence by sentence.  It's like shooting fish in a barrel.  Not sporting at all.  His argument rings hollow, as does his politics.

I can't help it.  Just one more.

 Yet progressives shouldn’t despair, because there is a saving grace—American federalism. New York, Maryland, and Connecticut have passed reforms

Yes, indeed, Will, thank God for federalism.  While New York, Maryland, Connecticut and Colorado were busy passing laws that won't help a bit, and certainly wouldn't have prevented the tragedy in Newtown, other states are moving to preserve gun rights, strengthen the rights of law-abiding Americans.  Michigan, Ohio,  Arkansas, Maine, Mississippi, Wyoming, South Dakota, Louisiana have all passed laws or Constitutional amendments strenthening gun rights.  More than a dozen states including Texas, North Carolina, Missouri and Georgia have such laws in the works.  Yes, indeed, Will, thank God for American federalism.

Let Freedom Ring!